Frank Hayes

Who was Frank Hayes?

Frank J. Hayes was a miner and president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1917 to 1920.

He was born in the coal mining town of What Cheer, Iowa, in 1882, but moved with his family as a boy to Illinois. At the age of 13, he began working in the coal mines.

He joined the United Mine Workers and held a number of local union offices before being elected secretary-treasurer of District 13 in 1904. A socialist, he allied himself with the radical left-wing of the miners' union and agitated for greater militancy and adoption of socialism as the union's only economic and political philosophy.

He was elected an international vice president in 1901. While a vice president, he helped strategize and organize the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia and the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914.

During his tenure on the UMWA executive council, he unsuccessfully ran for governor of Illinois on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America.

When UMWA president John P. White resigned in 1917 to take a federal government job, Hayes was elected president to succeed him.

Hayes' tenure as UMWA president was not an effective one.